Upgrade Intel 9560 to Killer AX1650?

On the recent Amazon Prime Day my son purchased an MSI GS75 that shipped with an Intel i7 9750H,1660Ti and an Intel 9560ac.

After helping him set up the Windows 10 x64 Home build 1903 and his college software the notebook ran very well.

Now came time to upgrade the wireless card to WiFi 6.His off campus apartment has a WiFi 6 router.In the house here we have the Netgear RAX120

When the 9560 was replaced with the Killer AX1650 the notebook fails to see it in device manager.I tried a Killer 1550 and Intel 9260 but they too were not showing up in the device manager no matter what I tried.When the 9560 is put back in it is immediately listed in Device Manager/Network Adapters and works right away.

What is it that I'm not doing to get the AX1650 to work in the notebook?

Some configurations of this same MSI GS75 ship with a Killer 1550.

I really don't want to order an AX201 from China.

Killernetworking support said it should work but offered no suggestions for getting the AX1650 to work.

Most likely this is because the 9560 is CNVi version of the 9260ac, meaning its a two part solution. The 9560 is basically a 9260ac with only the RF portion on the card with the actual brains/chipset in the cpu. Try resetting the bios and see if it lets you see the 9260ac, it should still work but the bios is probably set to use a CNVi card only. I doubt/hope its not a whitelist, as I don't think MSI has ever done that unlike Lenovo. If that doesn't work you need to order an Intel AX201 or ask help from MSI in regards to the bios not allowing full fledged WiFi cards.. Nothing wrong ordering from reputable sellers on ebay with 1000+ sales, plus probably half the cost too and you don't need to do the entire Killer Software block driver nonsense either.

I doubt you’d see too much of an overall range increase due to regulatory power limits assuming you test all three in similar conditions. You may see improvements at similar ranges but the signal edge fall off shouldn’t be too different. From my experience with the 8265/9260/AX200 at least all three performed similarly on HT80. The 8265 added MU-MIMO as the major change from the 8260. 9260 added HT160 to boost bandwidth significantly and the AX200 added AX but performs exactly like the 9260ac in ac mode HT80 and HT160.

As for doubling range from a 7265 that jaybee mentioned, could have been due to laptop manufacturer using a tweaked firmware card to meet certain regulatory restrictions or just a bad unit in general.

I doubt you’d see much of an overall range increase due to regulatory power limits assuming you test all three in similar conditions. You may see improvements at similar ranges but the signal edge fall off shouldn’t be too different. From my experience with the 8265/9260/AX200 at least all three performed similarly on HT80. The 8265 added MU-MIMO as the major change from the 8260. 9260 added HT160 to boost bandwidth significantly and the AX200 added AX but performs exactly like the 9260ac in ac mode HT80 and HT160.

As for doubling range from a 7265 that jaybee mentioned, could have been due to laptop manufacturer using a tweaked firmware card to meet certain regulatory restrictions or just a bad unit in general.

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I am not expecting doubling in range but at least 20% over the currently what I have now.

I am not expecting doubling in range but at least 20% over the currently what I have now.

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If upgrading from a 7260 maybe but from a 8260 or 8265 onwards it likely won’t be that drastic of an improvement at least in my experience with numerous laptops. Slight speed increases over the 8260 with the 8265 onwards but the signal fall off was not too far.

As I mentioned above Intel merely added additional features on top of the 8260 for each new card since like MU in the 8265 and HT160 in the 9260ac and AX featureset now in the AX200. If I recall correctly I don’t think other major changes were made to the amplifier/chipset since the 8265.

If upgrading from a 7260 maybe but from a 8260 or 8265 onwards it likely won’t be that drastic of an improvement at least in my experience with numerous laptops. Slight speed increases over the 8260 with the 8265 onwards but the signal fall off was not too far.

As I mentioned above Intel merely added additional features on top of the 8260 for each new card since like MU in the 8265 and HT160 in the 9260ac and AX featureset now in the AX200. If I recall correctly I don’t think other major changes were made to the amplifier/chipset since the 8265.

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I dont really mind speeds, i'm fine with speeds of 10-20mb, its just the range thats really bad. It could be the laptop. I have changed the wifi card with another 8260 and some killer one and same range.